LOL I have never really been afraid when fishing, but i know a mate of mine who was flounder fishing [in his waders] and a HUGE ray followed behind him and he didn’t realise it untill he suddenly started catching nothing all the flounder had gone so he decided he’d get out of the water and hed further round the bay….. Haha, rather scary to see a giant black moving blob coming towards you, needless to say he got out of the water sharpish.
Apparently ray’s can be attracted by the flounder light?
Snorkeling at Hori Bay, some years ago had a fed of paua & was looking for something to nail with my hawaiian sling. Awesome day with the sun at my back investigating a likely looking rock face underwater when a f@#ken big shadow loomed up onto the rock I was facing at the time. Turned to find a rather inquisitive Ray checking me out, gave me a hell of a fright initially so that I dropped my catch bag, floudered around for a sec & the Ray made a hasty retreat. Just the unexpected when everything was so peaceful at the time, lol.
Yeah I cant really say I’ve been scared while fishing..
But I have had a fair few fright whilst snorkelling..
Checking out all the little nooks and crannys for crayfish and a big conger eel pokes his head out of the hole. That usually makes me get outta there pretty fast
Another time I was snorkelling and had a mother seal jump in the water beside me when its pup started swimming near me.. Dont trust seals too much.. and their teeth are big
Probably the scariest moment I’ve ever had fishing was being out eeling with a mate of mine when we were both still at school.
We went down the the North side of the Temuka River and went gaffing eels, just after dark.
We saw a pool full of eels and hopped in, these were only little ones, or so we thought.
We caught quite a few (for surf casting bait) and then all of a sudden, I felt something grab my right gumboot.
It tore the back out of the boot and latched itself onto my right calf muscle, for a 15 y/o boy this is not a done thing!
I was fair panicking by this stage and got my mate to cut it’s head off and remove the head from my leg.
My mate had thrown the eel up on the river-bed during all this, we looked at it with a torch, it would have been easily 2 metres long.
I still have a few marks from that eel, although it was 20 or so years back.
I haven’t been eeling since though.